Elected council should retain ultimate control & planning powers

[Forum] The State Government has appointed a team of expert overseers made up of the Government Architect, a Coordinator General, and a re-purposed, but unelected, Central Coast Regional Development Corporation, with a new CEO to oversee investment and development in Gosford City.

We also have three millionaires driving their development interests in the city. If this isn’t enough, the Planning Minister has now declared that developments over $10m will become state significant sites, giving the Planning Minister total control. The question is, whose interests are they all representing? If the answer is their own and the Government’s, then it is time ask where does our elected council fi t in this supposedly democratic state? We have seen Barangaroo suffer interference in overturning promised controls, plans and open space. In every case, infrastructure follows, rather than precedes, thus creating further disruption. We have seen Sydney groaning from greedy over development as units spread like an uncontrolled growth across the landscape, until the residents have finally called “stop” to the destruction.

Is this the chance for the government and their developer mates to descend on Gosford and wreak the same fate on us? Traffic, parking problems and infrastructure in Gosford is already stretched to the limit with current developments, yet these considerations are not part of the Planning Minister and his team’s remit. These issues must be dealt with before development proceeds apace, bringing our city to a grinding halt. No one would deny the need for development in Gosford, but our elected council should retain the ultimate control and planning powers, not the State Government and developers.

Year 10 Visual Art students from St Brigid’s Catholic College, Lake Munmorah , participated in the Sculpture by the Bay Exhibition at the Edogawa Commemorative Garden. “Congratulations to our students…